


Something About The Kid

by last_of_her_kind



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Happy Hogan POV, Peter Parker being Peter Parker, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:34:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25443220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/last_of_her_kind/pseuds/last_of_her_kind
Summary: Happy had spent a lot of time around heroes. Not just Tony. He saw the fire that drove them to constantly be giving every bit of extra they had to someone else. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that Peter ended up being no different.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41





	Something About The Kid

**Author's Note:**

> Just something I've had sitting on my computer since FFH :)

Happy Hogan loved his job. He loved working with his best friend, helping a man who would never admit he needed help. He knew that even though his job was ‘small’ in comparison to the man who was Iron Man, a job with no recognition, it was something important. Because if he was screening people, then Tony didn’t have to. The man spent most of his adult life since returning from a cave with a hole in his chest watching his back. If Happy could help watch it – could take even a fraction of that worry off of Tony’s mind – he’d do it without complaint. Well, there might be a few complaints, but he didn’t mean it. Not really. Happy would do anything for Tony Stark.

Then he asked him to watch over the kid.

The kid had a name, of course. Peter Parker. The kid had an alias, too. Spiderman.

But he could probably count on one hand the number of times Tony actually referred to Peter as anything other than ‘the kid’, and it kind of stuck.

Happy did not like Peter (‘the kid’) Parker. He was naïve, he was irritating. He was a genius who could never seem to shut up, and he had boundless energy. He was a lot like Tony Stark in some regards, actually.

Except Tony was, well, under control. Peter just bubbled up and over to everyone. Happy’s life (at least the most recent handful of years) wasn’t exactly quiet, but there were no overeager children racing around his feet. That was something he had gone out of his way to avoid, and had been 100% successful… until the Accords split the Avengers, and Tony said “Pack it up, we’re going to Germany. Oh, but we’ve got a stop to make first.”

And weeks and weeks and weeks of deleting voicemails from a high school superhero, always along the lines of, _I held up a guy’s truck so he could change out a flat tire, then I gave directions to some tourists, and then I helped a boy find his dog_ was _too much._ It set his teeth on edge. Happy’s job was serious. His life was serious. There was no room for the over-the-top teenager Tony had saddled him with.

This kid wasn’t ready. He wasn’t a superhero, even if Tony indulged him with fancy suits and one not-really-but-kind-of a mission.

But something changed.

It might have started with those voicemails. Happy didn’t want to hear the kid going on and on about the do-gooder things he’d done – how he’d left a note with a stolen bike, and hopefully the owner would claim it, how he’d helped three ladies cross the busy crosswalks in the space of a week – although of course Happy listened to them, because even though it irritated him, it was his job. Tony said be the point of contact for Peter. Happy would be the point of contact for Peter.

One day, there was a message, and tangled up in the middle, given exactly the same amount of emphasis as rescuing cats from trees and chasing down blowing away umbrellas in the rain, was _I pulled two kids out of a burning building._

Something about it caught Happy’s attention. The matter-of-fact way Peter had said it, like it was equally as important as every other thing he’d done that day. He couldn’t help himself. He pulled up the news reports for that morning, and accessed the fire report.

An entire apartment building had gone up in flames in the early hours of the morning. Arson was the suspected cause, due to the intensity and speed at which the fifteen story building had caught. Most the building occupants had managed to make it out on their own in the minutes before the firetrucks arrived, and the firemen had managed to get another half dozen out using the bucket lift. But there had been two kids – four and six – in on one of the top floors, and due to the nature of the blaze and it’s origin point, no one could get in the building. There was nothing for the guys on the ground to do.

The two children would have died if Spiderman hadn’t arrived.

Reading it left a strange, unsettling feeling his gut.

After that, Happy found himself really paying attention to the voicemails, not just listening.

And during the next days check-in, Peter’s deeds listed _returned some library books I found on a bench, helped a guy move his furniture into his new apartment, saved a girl from two creeps in an alley._

Again Happy pulled up records from that day, and within minutes was staring at a report a young woman gave the police, following the arrest of two men with records of assault.

Then Happy started to really see what Peter had been doing – not just being a friendly, neighborhood Spiderman, but saving people on a level that Happy had completely discounted. It wasn’t the kind of thing Iron Man did, or Captain America, or Thor. But as Happy really started to look, he realized this kid was making an impact on peoples lives – saving people in little ways.

And he was doing it every freaking day.

Yes, he’d always been aware that Peter was on the streets every day, but it hadn’t really sunk home until then how much the kid had been doing. Afternoons after school, in the middle of the night. While maintaining his school, and when was this kid even sleeping with all the hours he logged in his suit?

The reports kept coming, day in and day out, vivacious and animated. But, unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for Happy to realize that the Vulture was a serious threat.

Until he watched his plane come down out the tower window.

By the time Happy arrived, the kid was no where to be found.

_FOUND. FLYING VULTURE GUY. SPIDERMAN. PS Sorry about your plane._

Even without the note, Happy would have known who had left the so-called Vulture there for him. The men with him cuffed the Vulture – or Toomes, Happy found out later – and as they were dragging him off, he leered at Happy, “Better find your kid,” he cough-laughed. “I dropped a building on the little bug, and well, he was looking a little worse for wear when he stumbled out of here.”

Happy stiffened. He could see what kind of shape this villain was in, and he heart squeezed thinking about the absent teen and wondering how much of that was truth, and how much was taunt. He glanced around again, his eyes sweeping the scene, past fire trucks and dancing flames and what was left of the crates he’d so carefully had loaded into the jet. (most were probably fine – maybe he wouldn’t be too hard on the kid)

Peter had speed healing for God’s sake. He’d be fine… right?

Happy pulled out his phone. _Where are you, Peter?_

The reply only took a moment. _On my way home._

_Are you okay?_

The wait was a bit longer, and then: _Just tired._

But Happy couldn’t help himself from typing, _I’m coming to see you._

He stared at the small screen, waiting, as emergency workers moved around him. A minute paused. Then two. Three. And Happy figured there wouldn’t be a reply. But that wasn’t going to stop him.

His phone buzzed, and he glanced down at the screen.

_Okay._

And that’s how an hour later, Happy found himself shut in Peter’s small, messy room, assessing broken ribs and a cracked cheekbone and a dislocated shoulder and regretting every time he’d let the kid’s calls go to voicemail, and not just _talking_ to him. Yeah, those ribs were already mending and the bruises covering his body were already an old, sickly yellow, but he was just a teenager.

Peter just seemed to grin and bear it, and it reminded Happy all too painfully of Tony.

Happy had spent a lot of time around heroes. Not just Tony. He saw the fire that drove them to constantly be giving every bit of extra they had to someone else. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that Peter ended up being no different.

Then the kid was gone.

It was almost incomprehensible for Happy, like he couldn’t remember a time when Peter’s all too chipper voice wasn’t prattling in his ear. Without Peter Parker, it was too quiet.

Years and years that made Tony quieter, and May quieter, and maybe, the whole world just a little quieter. He hadn’t realized how _much_ Peter had filled it.

They all moved on, because they had too, but when he pulled out his phone at the end of the day and there were no energetic voicemails, well, he noticed.

But Tony _got him back_. The sacrifice was too bloody high. His best friend for half the world, but really, for the kid. And Happy knew without a doubt he would continue to do what Tony had asked of him, because it was what Tony wanted, and that was something, but also because Peter had become this part of him, even while the kid was gone.

So he was there for him.

Happy knew, as soon as Peter followed him up out of that tulip field, that this wasn’t over. Even though he wanted to bubble wrap the kid and take him back to New York without hesitation. Even as he stitched the largest gash through his back and tried not to let Peter see him flinch (that bastard had hit his kid with a _train_ ). Peter wouldn’t leave this unfinished, and there was no time for reinforcements.

So yeah, Happy would deliver him to battle. Drop him right into the thick of things without backup, and Happy would be there to patch him back up when it was over.

He would be there for his kid.


End file.
